Learning with humiliation.

As I have read both texts, I have realized that they talk about same topic, but in a little bit different manner. When Grammar Alive! – as it might be expected of the text book of any sort – talks about all goals of teaching grammar in equal capacity, the Christensen’s article advocates more for the Goal C. As any convincing paper, the article uses combination of the three modes of persuasion: ethos, pathos and logos. For those that are not familiar with the Aristotle’s appeals, ethos stands for credibility and authority, pathos stands for emotional appeal, and logos stands for the facts provided in the writing to support the point or claim.  The Grammar Alive! also uses all three appeals. The leading appeal in the text book is logos; leading appeal in the Christensen’s article is pathos. The difference between the two texts is in a different appeal.

It is clear that both of the texts aimed towards same audience – group of academic peers and teachers of grammar. But they address different aspects of the grammar teaching: when Grammar Alive! in the well-paced and balanced language advocates for the equality of each approach to teaching English grammar (Haussamen 3), Christensen’s article spices up the text by the personal examples of how prevalence only of the Goal A in the teaching had negative impact on the lives of the author and other students (Christensen 101). In my opinion, both of the approaches are equally important. When such topic is approached, all types of opinions must be voiced. This allows reader to form their own opinion on the subjects, and to decide which opinion is more close to their own situation, background and experience.

 In my own process of learning English, I happened to encounter a person, who was very strict and set in the ways of teaching Standard English. It happened in the first couple of years since my arrival in the USA. As I was set to learn English and excel in it as much as possible, this person was very criticizing about my way of writing and speaking. As it was clear afterwards, when I started to write first, I was making same six mistakes thought all of my compositions. Only while reading Grammar Alive! this semester, I realized that my own pattern at the time was fitting the definition of the language variety. Of course, I am not saying that I wrote in perfect Standard English, but I shouldn’t have been criticized about my mistakes as much as I have been. At that time, because of the constant negative feedback, I started to lose my confidence and faith that I can come to mastering Standard English one day. My example fits very well into the line of stories presented by Christensen – herself with teacher Mrs. Delaney, a woman with Puerto-Rican and Hawaiian background... They all felt insignificant and not important because of what they had to say was not a standard way of saying or for that matter writing things. (Christensen 102). I can relate to this feeling.

The phrase in Christensen’s article – “Learning the “Standard” without humiliation” (Christensen 103) – grabbed my attention. This is what I am still interested in – improving my skills and extending my knowledge without someone constantly trying to show me my lower status due to the fact that English is not my first language. “It took me years to undo what Mrs. Delaney did to me. Years to discover that what I said was more important than how I said it.” (Christensen 104). In my life the negative influence was not as long, and it started to wear off as soon as I was brave enough to take first English class at WSU. But still, it took me about one more year to regain my confidence, even though the instructor in a very first course that I took at the University was impressed with skills. All Goals presented in Grammar Alive! are equally important, but none of them should dominate over the other. Only balanced approach and goodhearted encouragement can breathe life into otherwise disconnected rules of grammar.